Financial expert urges NASS to pass Nigeria Mining Commission Bill

A financial expert, Mr Tony Edeh, has urged the National Assembly to pass the bill establishing Nigeria Mining Commission into law to facilitate the diversification of economy, driven by the present administration.

Edeh, the Managing Director of Norrenberger Financial Group, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.

Norrenberger is an Integrated Financial Services Group that operates a customer-focused business model, offering clients a comprehensive range of financial products and services.

This includes Funds and Investment Management, Structured and Alternative Finance, SME Funding, Foreign Exchange and Business Advisory Services.

He explained that the bill had been in the National Assembly awaiting passage and when it was passed into law; and the commission was in place, the revenue from the mining sector would be boosted.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s led administration should put forth its political might to ensure that the bill was passed into law.

The expert also advised the Federal government to sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with state governments where these minerals were deposited to jointly explore while royalty would be paid to the central government.

He added that the state governments would also be realising their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from the sale of these natural resources.

According to him, host communities must be carried along too to avoid being neglected.

Edeh enjoined Federal Government to encourage local Miners to form cooperative societies that would give them legal backing to engage more in the business.

He lauded the present government’s effort for its anchor borrower scheme, saying that it had employed more youths in farming and other entrepreneurial activities.

“Rice mills are springing up as a result of incentives from government. This has encouraged more people to go into rice farming specifically.

“The present government has also supported initiatives in the ICT by giving out small credit facilities to best ICT solution based application to expand their businesses,” he noted.

The expert explained that the Nigerian economy could be classified broadly into the oil and non-oil sectors.

According to him, growth in the second quarter in 2018 was driven by developments in the non-oil sector as service sector recorded its strongest positive growth since 2016.

He said that the non-oil sector grew by 2.05 per cent in real terms during the quarter in review, mainly driven by Information and communication services, construction, agriculture, transportation, storage and other services.

“It is clear that no economy grows while depending on a single source of income, different sectors of the economy are expected to contribute to the overall GDP of a country before a meaningful growth can be achieved.

“Nigeria has depended on oil for too long and it is time to begin to look at other sectors of the economy that needs to be developed in order to earn more money and expand the economy,” he said.

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